when the author of the article berates the west, and claims it stands in now for african people and their struggle, he is claiming something that is right and wrong. to be sure, the world order is dominated by the major economic interests--western and asian. but, as moses has forcefully argued in the past on this list, to attribute all the ills or corrections of those ills in africa to outsiders is to remove all agency and responsibility from africans themselves. thus, when the author of this piece, later on down, writes that human rights and reporters' rights are handled by the committee to protect journalism or amnesty, he is making deliberate distortions since everyone from his part of the continent is aware of courageous burundian, ugandan, and rwandan, and congolese organizations for the protection of journalism and of human rights whose members have been jailed or disappeared for opposing their regimes. their names are inscribed in our hall of fame, and they are africans.
when he praises kagame for his achievements, without mentioning all the billions of dollars rwandan army officers have made siphoning off congolese minerals, he is worse than an apologist for a regime; he is an apologist for those who created the conditions that resulted in the deaths of millions of people.
only a fool could read this piece without grinding his or her teeth, and i don't want to lose any more enamel.
ken
How the West is seeking to usurp Africa's struggle for freedom and democracy using a humanitarian language
Since the end of the Cold War, a movement to save Africa from Africans has grown and gained momentum across the Western world. This movement is reflected in campaigns to end poverty by giving aid and canceling debt, to try African leaders at the International Criminal Court and to promote human rights. On the face of it, this movement seems humane and well intentioned.
But on close examination, this movement is an attempt to usurp the sovereignty and therefore democratic content of our continent's struggle for independence. My interest in this article is the growth of a human rights police wielding a stick on the heads of elected African leaders.
Two governments in contemporary Africa have been very successful at an autonomous state building and economic reconstruction project – Rwanda under Paul Kagame and Ethiopia under the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. They have equally been victims of a near-jihad by the human rights police claiming to represent the real interests of their citizens. Two other countries have been unable to engineer an autonomous project of state and economic reconstruction. They have instead remained under management by the United Nations – Liberia and Sierra Leone. These are the darlings of the human rights community.
Why are Africa's most successful governments at state and economic reconstruction vilified while those managed by donors are praised and presented as model examples? The answer is that their leaders take orders from London, Paris and Washington DC. Perhaps I am overstating the case. However, there is reason to believe that some elements in Western society would like to create an Africa that in their own image. Anything that is not a reproduction of Western society is not only seen as abnormal but also a danger to be fought and annihilated.
For example, beginning mid last year, the international press (largely western based or managed) has launched a jihad against the government of Kagame in Rwanda. The ammunition for the this jihad is a shoddy and doggy report by a UN "panel of experts" that alleges Rwanda to be training and arming M23 rebels fighting the government of President Joseph Kabila of DR Congo.
The third party and cheer leader of this triumvirate is the international human rights community which has been leading the campaign against Kigali for nearly two decades. Given that the post genocide government in Kigali represents the most successful state attempt in post independence Africa to serve ordinary citizens, this should surprise us. Actually it should not and this is why.
International human rights groups largely founded and financed by the West have increasingly become powerful voices shaping politics in Africa. Their voice is respected by governments and mass media in the West. Given Africa's dependence on Western aid, our leaders shape our politics around what these groups are saying. But this tends to undermine our sovereignty and nascent democratic institutions.
It also reflects growing success by Western countries to shape post colonial Africa in their own image. Kagame's crime has been to place the interests of Rwanda and his people above the demands of these organizations. The price of this insistence on independence may be catastrophic for him and Rwanda. Indeed, it has been the experience of other African leaders who tried this before him – Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah, Milton Obote and Thomas Sankara. Read More
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